Electronic devices such as smartphones, tablet personal computers (PCs), and laptop PCs are growing in popularity and valued for their convenience and portability in various fields. Most of such devices are equipped with a camera. More recently, interest in 3-dimensional (3D) cameras has been increasing rapidly, and the number of 3D camera-equipped electronic devices is growing.
The 3D camera has been developed as different types such as a stereoscopic camera, a time-of-flight (TOF) camera, a structure light camera, and an arrayed camera. The 3D cameras are capable of measuring various types of information including depth in addition to a 2-dimensional (2D) image. A 3D camera-equipped electronic device is capable of providing a user with a 3D image using the various types of information acquired by means of the 3D camera.
In order to process various data collected by the 3D camera, a powerful computation capability is required. For example, triangular calculation, computer vision process, and Red-Green-Blue (RGB) camera mapping or registration are all high computational capability-requiring processes. For this reason, it is a minimum requirement for a 3D camera-equipped electronic device to be equipped with a high performance Graphic Processing Unit (GPU) and Digital Signal Processor (DSP).
However, the processors installed in legacy electronic devices are lacking in terms of 3D camera data processing capability. Such a capability shortage may lead to a significant processing overload.